Partners in Crime

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The attempted assassination of a Russian banker in London last month raises the spectre of a new round of Russian mafia violence in Britain. Organised crime and targeted killings remain one of Russia’s most deadly and distasteful exports. Police and security services across Western Europe are still struggling to contain crime networks that use extreme brutality to further their interests — drugs, extortion, people trafficking — but which reach up also into banking and business monopolies and seem to enjoy the corrupt protection of elements of the Russian State.

Britain is particularly threatened. Not only is there a large and rich Russian